3: The Dale Earnhardt Story - Historical Inaccuracies

Historical Inaccuracies

The relationship between Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt in the film focuses primarily on their fierce rivalry, with little attention given to the friendship that would develop between the two. Waltrip noted this on his website during the runup to the film. Waltrip eventually drove for Earnhardt's race team in 1998. Also, it is Waltrip's tear-filled voice that can be heard saying "I just hope Dale's okay," during the film's depiction of Earnhardt's fatal crash at Daytona due to the use of NASCAR on Fox's original footage and commentary, which is now owned by NASCAR Images (starting in 2001, NASCAR Images owns all NASCAR race footage; they also own the footage of the former Sunbelt Video).

Several cars shown in the movie were historically inaccurate. In the moments before the 2001 Daytona 500, the cars of Bobby Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Jeff Gordon, and Rick Mast are seen, with Gordon's easily visible, as the 2001 season was the year the "Rainbow Warrior" livery was replaced with the "Fire and Flames" livery. Also notable was a wrong-year scene featuring Morgan-McClure Motorsports, where a late 1990s Kodak Max film livery was used for Sterling Marlin's car instead of the Kodak Gold film livery. (The design was based on a box of Kodak film.) Also, the movie car was a Pontiac. The real car MMM fielded at the time was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Morgan-McClure Motorsports did, however, field a Pontiac Grand Prix in the 2003 season. Another inaccuracy is the depiction of Rusty Wallace's car as a Dodge Intrepid in the Daytona 500 - Penske Racing did not switch to Dodge until 2003, and Wallace was driving a Ford Taurus in 2001.

In two different scenes in the film, the infield of various tracks were shown with flags of drivers who were not driving at that time were shown, such as Tony Stewart's flag at the Darlington race in 1990, where Neil Bonnett suffered a violent crash, along with several other cars involved.

The February 23, 1986 incident at Richmond International Raceway was inaccurately depicted, where Earnhardt spun out Darrell Waltrip with three laps to go. In the film, Earnhardt's now-famous line "I didn't mean to wreck him, I just wanted to rattle his cage a little" was part of the post-race interview. That line, however, was not said at that time. Instead it was said at Bristol on August 28, 1999 after Earnhardt spun out Terry Labonte on the final lap to win the race.

In Earnhardt's first Daytona 500 start, the movie shows him driving a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. However, he actually drove a Buick. Also mentioned in the scene that Earnhardt finished 4th in the race, Earnhardt finished 8th in his first Daytona 500 start and thus it is also inaccurate. He finished 4th prior to that once in 1978 at Dover and would not score another top 5 until North Wilkesboro that same year of his first 500 start.

During the scene of him being at a gas station, soon after the short montage of Earnhardt winning the 1980 title, it showed John Anderson flipping over during the 1981 qualifying races at Daytona, a race that Earnhardt finished 4th at.

The film made no mention of his two-year stint with car owner Bud Moore from 1982 to 1983. In fact, for many years, Nationwide Series cars by Hendrick Motorsports used #15 because Earnhardt drove a Hendrick-Gee car to a Busch Series win at Charlotte in 1983. From 2001 until 2007, the DEI Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven by Michael Waltrip was numbered #15 in honour of Moore.

Dale actually first met Teresa when she was about 16, and he knew she was Hal Houston's daughter (also the uncle of former driver Tommy Houston). Their meeting is inaccurately portrayed in the film.

In the scenes of the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt is seen wearing a helmet with Corvette Racing decals, rather than his GM Goodwrench decaled helmet. (The Corvette Racing helmet was used in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, with Earnhardt sharing it with his son.)

In the 2001 Daytona 500 scene, Earnhardt is seen wearing tinted racing goggles. Earnhardt actually wore his clear racing goggles in his final race.

None of Earnhardt's crew chiefs were accurately mentioned. Earnhardt won his first championship with Doug Richert, then won his next four with Kirk Shelmerdine, and his final two with Andy Petree (now at ESPN) at the top of the pit box. He won his only Daytona 500 with Larry McReynolds (currently with Fox Sports). None were portrayed in the movie accurately.

Dale Earnhardt did give a gun to Neil Bonnett as a gift and their friendship is accurate.

When Earnhardt the 1998 Daytona 500, during the line of pit crew members congratulating Earnhardt, it was very noticeable that the Winston logo (the series sponosor from 1971–2003) covered the NEXTEL letters on the banner, NEXTEL became the series sponsor starting in 2004 before renaming to Sprint. Also in that scene, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is shown hugging his father in victory lane. Earnhardt, Jr. was not at the race, as he had returned home following the Busch Series (now known as the Nationwide Series) race in which he was involved in a late race crash that resulted him to go airborne.

ESPN Original Entertainment executive producer Will Steger was quoted in the Dick Berggren's Speedway Illustrated magazine (December 2004) saying the film was an,"unauthorized docudrama...inspired by the true life of Dale Earnhardt." The story, written by Leo Dougherty, noted that Andy Hillenburg, the current owner of Rockingham Speedway, went across the country from Massachusetts to Florida to California collecting race cars for the film. Hillenburg provided 62 cars that were built into race cars and painted to reflect cars of certain eras in the film. Hillenburg owned the Bobby Allison car that was in the film. The car was in the Talladega museum and was the car Allison won the Daytona 500 with the year he beat his son, Davey, to the finish line. Ron Bouchard also loaned his 1981 Talladega-winning car to the film. Hillenburg is quoted in the article saying, "...those are the only cars that appear as they really are."